Improving Risk Communication (1989) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 14-29
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From page 14... ...
But while great weight needs to be given to the specialized knowledge of these experts, democratic principles require that the decisions be controlled by officials, generally nonspecialists, who are answerable to the public. As Jefferson realized Tong ago, public decisions that require specialized knowledge raise questions about political power.
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From page 15... ...
They argue that increased efforts of this kind would make conflicts about technological choices easier to resolve and would enable the society to make better choices about protecting public health, safety, and environmental quality. For reasons elaborated throughout this report, we believe this concept of risk communication and decision making is incomplete and, in important
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From page 16... ...
a desire to share power between government and public groups, and (4) a desire to develop effective alternatives to direct regulatory control.
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From page 17... ...
The use of information to overcome political opposition makes some notion of risk communication attractive to many proponents of controversial technology; it is, in fact, what they mean by the term. Desire to Share Power Between Government and Public Groups Government officials have sometimes seen in risk communication a way to reduce conflict with segments of the public by sharing power.
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From page 18... ...
Although the smelter was shut down by Asarco before the public process ran its course, Ruckelshaus's goal of achieving consensus appears unlikely to have been attained. Desire to Develop Effective Alternatives to Direct Regulatory Control Government officials sometimes wish to persuade individuals to protect their health by personal action rather than to adopt regulatory policies that require health-protective actions.
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From page 19... ...
. Some of the alternatives involve replacing regulatory prohibitions and financial penalties imposed on those who produce hazardous technologies with reliance on informed discretion of the users of those technologies.
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From page 20... ...
A problem formulation that appears to substitute technical analysis for political debate, or to disenfranchise people who lack technical training, or to treat technical analysis as more important to decision making than the clash of values and interests is bound to elicit resentment from a democratic citizenry. Because of such reactions to them, problem formulations that attribute technological conflict to widespread public ignorance only exacerbate the conflict.
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From page 21... ...
It involves multiple messages about the nature of risk and other messages, not strictly about risk, that express concerns, opinions, or reactions to risk messages or to legal and institutional arrangements for risk management. As we will establish in Chapter 4, risk communication is successful only to the extent that it raises the level of understanding of relevant issues or actions and satisfies those involved that they are adequately informed within the limits of available knowledge.
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From page 22... ...
Risk communication includes messages moving in various directions-not only from experts to nonexperts but also from nonexperts to each other, from nonexperts to experts, and especially the messages of political participation, from citizens to public decision makers. Decisions in government depend on dialogue between the decision maker and staff within the responsible agency and between the decision maker and various political participants, who influence the decision maker's view of the risks and the risk management options.
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From page 23... ...
RISE MESSAGES AS PART OF THE RISE COMMUNICATION PROCESS Risk messages, because they flow in only one direction, are only part of the interactive risk communication process. Risk messages include verbal statements, pictures, advertisements, publications, legal briefs, warning signs, or other declaratory activities that describe, characterize, or advocate positions or actions regarding risks, hazardous technologies or activities, or risk control options.
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From page 24... ...
Risk messages can be carried by a variety of media: face-to-face interaction, direct mailings, advertising, hot lines, presentations to groups, press conferences, television or radio interviews, newspaper or journal articles, and so on. Each medium has its advantages and limitations-for example, television reaches many people but needs visual material and is typically presented in short segments, and newspapers rely on the written word and can present longer, more complex messages but are less vivid and immediate in emotional impact.
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From page 25... ...
Generally, single messages can be expected to have little effect on recipients' behavior, but organized programs of messages, in which different messages are aimed at different specific purposes, can be effective. As discussed above, considerable research has been devoted to the study of messages to change individual behavior, and the resulting knowledge can help in designing more effective risk messages.
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From page 26... ...
It is possible to arrive at a meaningful idea of success for risk communication by considering a broad public purpose that successful risk communication serves. If a society values democratic decision making and well-informed, goal-directed individual choice, it makes sense from the societal standpoint to say that the purpose of risk communication is "to inform the discretion" of government officials, private organizations, and individuals.
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From page 27... ...
Citizens inform themselves by interpreting risk messages from various sources, including experts, intermediaries such as journalists, public relations officials of public agencies and corporations, and even friends and neighbors. They evaluate or balance what they know in order to reach a judgment and to make decisions regarding risks, such as whether to protest, ignore, negotiate, or take protective action.
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From page 28... ...
`ccessfut risk communication need not result in consensus about controversial issues or in uniform personal behavior. Although such objectives often serve the producers of risk messages as criteria of success for those messages, they are not appropriate criteria for the risk communication process in a democracy.
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From page 29... ...
Citizens' dialogue with public and industrial risk managers, even when it does not directly address risk, can be critical to risk management decisions. The broad definition of risk communication is a reminder that public decisions about risk require debate about values and interests as much as about risks because risks cannot be weighed against each other without considering values.
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